Wednesday, March 5, 2014

Dinosaur tracks!

Dinosaur tracks!

On average a T-Rex footprint is believed to be around 3.3 feet.

We decided to see how many of the children's feet we could fit into a T-Rex footprint.

First, I asked the children to estimate how many we would be able to fit. Their answers varied greatly but most of the children kept their number under 10. A few went for over 100 and one lone child guessed 45.

I then invited the children to come up one at a time to put their shoes into the T-Rex track.

In the end, we found that we could fit 22 shoes inside the footprint!

When it came time for the children to put their shoes back on we tried something a little different.

I gave each child a turn to come up to the footprint, put on a blindfold and try to use their sense of touch to find their shoes or slippers! haha

It was lots of fun and the children continued the game later during free choice time. They would blindfold one another and try to guess what toys their friends would hand them! It was great!

This also gave way to some great discussions about people who are blind and how they have to use their other senses to explore and make sense of the world around them.

We also made a classroom book with various dinosaur tracks!

We made crayon rubbings and the children had to match them to a toy dinosaur to identify which dinosaur they came from. They then had to add a sentence about where they thought the dinosaur was walking to.

The crayon rubbing technique can be repeated over and over using a variety of materials not just footprints. The process of looking for detail strengthens essential visual discrimination skills, the same skills children use to learn the differences between letters.